It could take us a generation to regain our former prestige and clout.
Those two men have harnessed the former president's clout to expand their businesses while making the Clintons rich through partnership and consulting arrangements.
Mr Dao, a former official, carried particular clout in Vietnam's blogosphere, as did Truong Duy Nhat, another blogger, who was arrested in the city of Danang on May 26th.
Adding to some grumbling at home about the use of lobbyists, the Indian government is paying an additional $25,000 a month for the clout of former Democratic Congressman Stephen J. Solarz, a New Yorker who was viewed as a friendly voice for India when he was a lawmaker.
Certainly, Taumaunu's CV carries considerable clout; a former New Zealand captain, she played in goal defence for the Silver Ferns from 1981 to 1991 and won the World Championships with them in 1987.
Against England's two spinners, James Tredwell and Joe Root, he was brutal, clouting the former as dismissively as he had Simon Kerrigan in The Oval Test, and choosing his moment to launch Root, into the wind and to the longest leg-side boundary, for 26 of the 28 runs, including three vast sixes, that came from what proved his final over.
To that end, the prime minister gave wide latitude to his foreign secretary, William Hague, a man with the clout of a former Conservative leader and one of only two current cabinet members to have run a department of state before.
Its new minister, Sadakazu Tanigaki, is a former finance minister with the clout to prune the extravagance.In this section More to worry about than Musharraf Swifter, higher, weaker Five-ring circus Round two Peace in our time, maybe Shall we do lunch?
Attempts to stand up to the West on issues such as Nato enlargement tend to follow a sterile pattern of warnings, tantrums, sulks and grudging acceptance.The success story, of sorts, is in the inner part of the former Soviet empire, where Russian clout is steadily growing.
Mrs. Clinton's alliance with Corning provides a window into how she has used her singular clout as a former first lady on behalf of new constituents in her adopted home state, and how those efforts in turn have helped her to bolster her already powerful fund-raising machine and win over previously skeptical New Yorkers.
